Methodology

We will define a rebound as any shot taken at 5v5 within three seconds of a previous shot, in a continuous action situation. These are known to be dangerous; see here and here for examples of the very low save percentages on rebound shots. That second link tells us that rebounds account for 11% of all shots taken within 60 seconds of the previous shot, but 34% of the goals. So — and this is not exactly earth-shattering — a goaltender who has the ability to cover up rebounds, or control them enough that a teammate can clear the zone, can significantly increase his value to his team.

A goalie’s rebound rate is then the number of rebound shots he allows, divided by the number of saves he makes, such as James Reimer’s 2.3% rate on 841 saves in 2010-11, one of the best seasons on record for rebound suppression, or James Reimer’s 6.0% on 761 saves in 2013, one of the worst seasons on record for rebound suppression. (That should give you an idea of the variability in this statistic.)

Results

At this point we’ll partially obey the law of headlines and say: no, outside of a few cases, goalies generally do not have an ability to control rebounds.

It should be noted that what we really mean here is: given the play-by-play data available to us, goalies generally do not have an ability to control rebounds. If you track your own statistics during a game, and then compare them to the NHL’s official record, more often than not you’ll find discrepancies. Shots are recorded at the wrong time or credited to the wrong player, or even (rather famously) the faceoff dots are all over the place. All reported results here (and anywhere that the play-by-play is used as heavily) are subject to that disclaimer.

I could tell you that Reimer had a 2.3% rebound rate one year, then 4.0% the next, then 6.0% in the next, but is that really telling you he got worse? (League average is around 5.2%.) Pekka Rinne was at 3.0% in 2011-12, but 4.7% the year before and 3.6% the year after. How much of those changes are due to the goaltenders themselves?

One way to look at that is to group goalies by their performance in one year, then look at how they all did the next year. We have 79 goalies who saved at least 300 shots in consecutive years, and here’s what their year-to-year rebound rate looks like:

Group

Year 1

Year 2

1

3.8%

4.8%

2

4.7%

4.8%

3

5.1%

5.4%

4

5.6%

5.6%

5

6.4%

5.6%

The regression is severe for the top group: more than 70% of the way towards the average for Group 1, which is part of the reason that I don’t think goalies can really suppress rebounds that much. But the goalies who were not good in one year don’t regress as much, possibly because they are truly that bad, or possibly because the really bad/unlucky ones didn’t get a chance to put up more mediocre numbers in year 2 and thus increase the year-to-year improvement of the group.

The “Pekka Rinne Rankings”?

Given the variability in rebound rate, we need to add about 570 league-average saves to everyone’s totals to get a “true” estimate of their rebound-suppression skill. When we add up the last three years of data, and regress appropriately, we get the following list, sorted by “Reb GAA” — goals above average with respect to rebound rate only.

Name

Shots

“True” Reb%

Reb GAA

Pekka Rinne

4170

3.9%

19.8

James Reimer

2492

4.3%

8.7

Michal Neuvirth

1995

4.2%

7.7

Ilya Bryzgalov

3651

4.6%

7.7

Ryan Miller

3857

4.7%

6.8

Tim Thomas

2754

4.6%

6.7

Jonathan Quick

3372

4.7%

6.5

Tuukka Rask

1987

4.4%

5.9

Mike Smith

2832

4.6%

5.8

Roberto Luongo

3036

4.7%

5.6

These goalies were all able to add a win or more through rebound suppression, compared to an average goalie, and they are mostly good goaltenders overall. (The 11th and 12th on this list are Craig Anderson and Carey Price.) Of course, if you let up fewer high-percentage rebounds, you’d have a better save percentage, too.

He eliminates a lot of second chances himself [by] smothering pucks with his glove and he’s so good at catching and scooping pucks off the ice. I’d never seen it before until I started paying with him, first in Milwaukee. He would scoop those pucks right off the ice if you were shooting for his far side pad. It’s an unbelievable skill, because without a doubt that’s a rebound on any other goalie that could [possibly] come out for a second chance or another shot.

And there is some evidence that Weber isn’t just speaking well of a teammate here.

Keep in mind, though, that we had to combine three years’ worth of data to find this effect — or, rather, 2.6 years. The amount we have to add to a goalie’s raw rebound rate at 5v5, 570 saves, is equivalent to about 27 games. So even the goalie who played the most this past year, Ondrej Pavelec, is regressed nearly half of the way to the mean, from his 6.6% to 6.0%. It’s hard to identify this skill during the season, if it is even indeed a skill.

Looking ahead

For the goalies who played in consecutive years (2010-11 and 2011-12, or 2011-12 and 2013), the best way to predict their Year 2 rebound rate is simply to guess that they’ll be league-average. But let’s add to that sample, and see if we can find any predictive value to the regressed rebound rate.

Pekka Rinne’s regressed rate was 4.3% this past year. We don’t yet know what he’ll do next year, but let’s pair him with Braden Holtby, who had a similar 5v5 SV% in similar playing time but a 5.5% rebound rate.

A year from now, we can check the rebound rates of each group. If there’s no difference, then it would be hard for us to say there’s much value in one year’s worth of rebound statistics for goalies.

We can also take that three-year top 10 list from above, and see how close those players are to league average next year. My guess is that the larger sample means they’d regress less, assuming no significant aging effects, but that is just a guess.

Conclusion

Aside from Rinne, who could very well be an outlier here (and we have reason to believe he could be legitimately great at this), there isn’t that much a goalie can do in a given year to suggest he has the ability to save more than a few goals. This may be an artifact of the data quality we have to work with. Or it could simply be too difficult for most NHL goalies to control what happens to a very-high-speed projectile after it hits them in the chest.

After an eventful and at times confusing offseason, the Carolina Hurricanes got off to a scorching start to the 2018-19 season. In their first five games, the Canes went 4-0-1 while outscoring the opposition 22-15 in all situations and 16-9 at 5v5. They were also controlling 62.4% of the unblocked shot attempts at 5v5 during…